Canyon Ridge Is a Personal Journey About Mental Health

Canyon Ridge is an upcoming title created by a developer who created the game based on his real experience with schizoaffective disorder.

Canyon Ridge by Gutter Arcade tells a personal story of developer Aj Gonzalez’s mental health through an autobiographical game played through the screen of a type of retro gaming device known as the O28i by fictional company Ocron.

Canyon Ridge is a 2D visual adventure experience where the player wakes up in a place they don’t recognize. They’ll explore the areas they’re in and be faced with puzzles to solve as they debate the seriousness of their avatars mental health as hallucinations grow worse.

The game will feature in-world puzzles to solve within the interactable UI of the O28i in an 8-bit style. Similar to titles such as Captain Commander, or 8-Bit Night, just presented in a more old school fashion. It’ll feature a single-action input, and there will be medication scattered around the world that can be consumed to control growing hallucinations from arbitrary actions.

Each room around the world features different color schemes and interactable objects. The teaser below shows the game in action and be sure to check out the screenshots too.

Back in 2012 Gonzalez was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and for a year after that struggled with schizophrenic episodes. The medications eventually stabilized Gonzalez allowing him to focus on learning and creating video games. After years of reflection and researching a black notebook he kept during his stay at the mental hospital, Canyon Ridge has been created.

Vector Arcade launched its first game “prog.1“, a title about a computer virus. That title was published by Groupees Interactive, but Canyon Ridge is being published by Gutter Arcade.

Canyon Ridge is to be arriving sometime this fall for Android, iOS, PC, and Mac.

Ben Bayliss is a UK based staff writer for DualShockers. He spent over ten years doing media production related projects, and five years as a camera operator/director for live TV. He has been writing about games since 2015 as well as managing gaming websites. Now he's here at DualShockers to provide the latest coverage in gaming news, and more.